Saturday, September 28, 2013

True Crime

Poisoned Love (2005) by Caitlin Rother
The End of the Dream: The Golden Boy Who Never Grew Up and Other True Cases (1999)
Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder (1988)
Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal (2007)
By Ann Rule
Weight: 2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

That question of true crime again. It just does not seem right to get entertainment from other people's loss, and I have trouble finding a way to make it not entertainment. I see the usefulness in learning, predicting, preventing--like in the case of domestic violence (Too Late to Say Goodbye), but is that why these are national bestsellers? Or why there are so many crime shows on tv? We are horrified and scared, but also enthralled by evil. Is it because it lives within us? Do we need something more evil than our evil so that we do not feel so bad? Do we need to be heros who solve the crimes? Do we need to see the clues so we can feel confident that it won't happen to us? I don't know. I am done getting sucked into these shows and books. There are some things I will never understand and senseless murder is one of them.

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Among the Rubble of Fallen Bookshelves...

I have collected books for as long as I can remember. I worked in bookstores for years before I ended up at the animal shelter. I have gathered words, sentences, punctuation, and cover art to my own detriment. I purchased books before clothes, sometimes instead of food. I can see my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood sprawled across many shelves and shoved into boxes that sit collecting dust, just waiting for the next big move. I think I am a woman who is afraid of commitment, settling, and stagnation. Yet the things I love most seem to coincide best with a stable, secure, immovable life. I love dogs, books, and often one woman’s company above that of others. The dogs are here for the long haul. They are too wonderful for this world and yet they are essential to it. The woman is complicated. The books are sturdy, durable, constant, perfect, and full of intrigue. They are also very heavy. They are boxes of ounces, pounds, kilograms, weight. We have moved together too many times. Maybe we met at the wrong time in the wrong place, and I have just refused to let go all of this time. I have decided to dismantle this library of thousands of books. What am I holding onto really? I have books I loved, books I hated, books that made me uneasy for weeks, and books that made someone else uneasy for weeks. I have begun to treat these books like objects and not like the magical capsules they are. I am going to give away, sell, donate all of this weight so that others can enjoy it, collect it, share it, and so that I can move more freely through my life. Libraries are where it’s at. The problem: I am terrified to let the books go. We have been together so long and put each other through so much. The only way I can imagine sending them off is if I memorialize each and every one I have left at this moment. This blog is to honor my friends, my enemies, my lovers, my life, and my words as I have collected them through the books I have read and, finally, to move away from them and onto other things. I will never stop loving books. I will never stop reading. I plan only to stop collecting so much material, so much weight.